Taking off in October hasn’t gone so well. Things just keep getting done.  One was finally getting around to installing video cameras that we bought last year.  It’s a Swann HDR-8200 DVR with 4 1080p cameras.

The cameras ended up being way bigger than I thought (3″ x 8″ or so) so mounting options were reduced.  I didn’t want to ruin the look of the house, but also needed specific views to cover all the entryways + detail.  In the end we have 2 cameras in the back and 2 in the front.  One of each is a wide view and the other is a detail view.  Being full HD we can still read license plates from way up there and its wide enough to get our front door, alley gate and the neighbor’s doors on either side.

You can barely see it up there.

For the front detail camera, I decided to do some camera surgery.  Inside that huge can was a 1.5″ x 1.5″ x 1.5″ camera.  I drilled a hole in the front door and installed the whole circuit board and camera inside the door.  To finish it off, I caulked on the 3″ glass lens from t he camera for a seemless and sealed look. The end result is pretty good.  I get a good detailed view across the street and of every person that walks by and especially those that come up to the door with only a little cutoff on the corners that I may be able to adjust away.

Peep Hole Camera!

Our views

I can view all of this on the HDTV.  So far we’ve sat and watched the cat go out back and have yelled at the TV a few times as cars sped down the street.  When not at home we can stream the video to our phones or computers.  It does seem to lock up one or two camera channels on the DVR every now and then.  That was discovered last year and was one of the main reasons we took so long installing it.  Guess we’ll just deal with it?

I’ve vowed to take off for the month of October since it seems every October since we bought the house we’ve had some massive time critical project to do seriously impacting our Halloween costuming abilities.  With a few days left in September, there are still projects to do before it gets cold.

First off is the bathroom window.  This wasn’t a huge priority, but it is one of the few things that would really suck unless its already open window weather.  The main problem is that the wood frame is rotting away and letting water in which has ruined the bricks under it.  To fix it I decided to take it all out down to the bricks, relay the bricks that are loose, point the joints around the ones that I can reach and then re-frame the window.

Refamed. You can see the width of empty space beside the new frame where the old counter weights would have been.

Needs some paint.

First round of bricks went well until I realized that the old mortar wasn’t going to harden.  It all had to come out and be redone.  That set me back a few days, but I powered through and got the bricks (re)done and framed it up.

I added 4 studs as well on the sides of the windows.  These are to be used to hang a window box.  We may or may not close it in. It’s main purpose is to hold plants to give us a little more privacy from our neighbors who have a window just oppose ours.

While the weather held out I also knocked off some loose mortar from the alley bricks and Siri painted it up.

Also refurbished our non-venting stove vent to actually vent outside.  This involved disassembled the whole thing, washing it inside and out, blocked off the front vent, opened up the rear vent and adding some ducting.  I’m no longer shy about making holes in my walls so out came the impact drill.  I circle of 1/2″ holes later and I was through the brick wall to the alley.  Finished it up by spray foaming the inside and rebricking the outside.

We bought our base boards for doing trim in the fall the same day we had the truck for getting the steel and joists used on the stairs.  They’ve sat in the shack since them until I could catch up on some things.  Finally that day has come.  Having painted boards little by little over the last few weeks, and making some little corner pieces, I was all ready to go.  My brother came over and brought his trim nailer, chop saw and air compressor.  Six hours later we finished the trim in the bedroom.

With the trim done I could finally move the bed across the room.  This was a bed we built out of IKEA shelves and leftover strips of wood we tore out of the 1st floor ceiling. Previously it was against the end unit wall and got really cold in the winter.

Also, it was opposite was the chimney which meant that I had all of 12 inches to squeeze past every night leading to many bruised knees.  Moving it across the room lets use wrap it around the chimney a few inches giving me 24″ at the end of the bed to maneuver.

Over the next few days I added trim in the kitchen, hallway and living room.  Eventually I had to return the air tools and could take a break from the madness for a few months.  It was until September that I got a chance to finish up the front of the living room.

<ADD TONIGHT!>

This seems like a short, maybe insignificant post, but this is HUGE for us.  We’ve stared at the gaps between the walls and the ceilings for nearly 3 years.  It was obviously something we could live with, but it was obvious and sloppy to anyone who visited.

Goodbye ugly gaps

One family, one block, one hour. Citywide spring cleanup.

With the help of the wonderful Casey and Alana we had gotten the top 3 curved treads and the 5 straight treads up several weeks ago after a marathon 12 hour day of working on them.  After that we came to a stand still; we were out of joists to make more stairs.

Siri and I picked 15 feet of joists from our friend Adam. After a quick planing, I marked them out in pencil in the basement to maximize every inch. My goal was to build them while Siri was away in Seattle for a week.  I had a friend Julia come help me cut the boards. Over the next few days I glued, bolted and clamped them together, and then sanded them.  I finally got them in about a week after Siri got home.  Finally we can go all the way up and down without a ladder / stools.

Glamour shots will need to be taken to do these justice.  They look so good.

Emi inspects the stairs for code violations.

To really be done we need to get some railings.  We don’t really miss them though since we never had them to begin with.  Maybe something else for a few weeks though…